TV News LIES

Johann Strauss II's popular orchestral piece "By the Beautiful Blue Danube" has been inextricably linked to space since it was used in the 1968 classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The waltz played as a fictional spaceship docks with a space station, with expansive views of the Earth and the distant stars.

This week, the piece will take a more literal place among the stars when the European Space Agency broadcasts it into space.

As the Trump administration cut billions of dollars in federal funding to scientific research, thousands of scientists in the U.S. lost their jobs or grants — and governments and universities around the world spotted an opportunity.

The “Canada Leads” program, launched in April, hopes to foster the next generation of innovators by bringing early-career biomedical researchers north of the border.

Aix-Marseille University in France started the “Safe Place for Science” program in March — pledging to “welcome” U.S.-based scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered in their research.”

Australia’s “Global Talent Attraction Program,” announced in April, promises competitive salaries and relocation packages.

“In response to what is happening in the U.S.,” said Anna-Maria Arabia, head of the Australian Academy of Sciences, “we see an unparalleled opportunity to attract some of the smartest minds here.”

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Earth has a newly-discovered neighbor in the solar system.

But the heavenly body – possibly a dwarf planet à la Pluto – isn't a frequent visitor. Located beyond Neptune, its extreme orbit circumnavigates the sun once every 25,000 years, taking it beyond our solar system.

The new object, named 2017 OF201, was discovered by researchers in an astronomical image database while searching for trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and possible new planets in the outer solar system.

Sihao Cheng, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Natural Sciences, led the team that discovered the object, which he described as an "extreme 'cousin' of Pluto," in a comment on his personal website.

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Paleontologists have discovered a three-eyed creature with a pencil sharpener-like mouth that roamed the sea for prey more than 500 million years ago.

The fossilized remains of one Mosura fentoni — nicknamed the "sea moth" — were found in the Burgess Shale of Canadian Rockies, presenting researchers with new insight into animal life in the Cambrian period, according to a paper published this week in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The predator was about the length of an index finger, with three eyes dotting its head and a circular mouth lined with teeth, according to paleontologists at the Manitoba Museum and Royal Ontario Museum who made the discovery. The beast was also equipped with flaps on both sides of its body for swimming, and had intimidating claws extending from its head.

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Everything on Earth, in our solar system, our galaxy, and beyond is contained within the universe. So how much does  science tell us about the all-encompassing, four-dimensional cradle that holds all of space time? A lot.

Philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers across cultures and centuries have long debated and theorized about the night sky. But in the early 1920’s, building on the work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt and others, astronomer Edwin Hubble produced the first clear evidence that the swirling clusters visible through telescopes were actually distant galaxies, comparable to our own Milky Way. By capturing  detailed, long-exposure images of space features like pulsing, Cepheid variable stars, Hubble confirmed the true nature of the Andromeda Nebula and others. These weren’t just nearby gas clouds, but far away islands of worlds and stars.

In fact, the life that could be – emphasis on the could be – thriving on a distant ocean-covered planet named K2-18b is likely not intelligent at all.

But that doesn't make the recent discovery any less exciting.

Astronomers at the University of Cambridge announced on April 17 that they had found the strongest evidence yet that life may exist anywhere else besides Earth. Using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the researchers detected atmospheric clues hinting that microbial organisms could be living on the surface of K2-18b in the constellation Leo.

Here's everything to know about the discovery, the intriguing exoplanet itself and the ongoing search for life in the cosmos.

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